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Gorebucket's Field Guide to Treefolk
A Field Guide to Treefolk? This is a rough guide for people curious about playing a Tree battlegroup. I'm writing this to promote, what I feel is, one of the most interesting themes in Poxnora. Over the course of the guide, I will go through the runes one needs, and the strategies one should be aware of, in order to play this theme with reasonable success. Surely there must be someone more qualified to write a guide then me, but seeing as they haven't, mine will have to suffice. What's so great about Treefolk? Trees are packed with racial synergy, champs that play well off of each other, and have access to the same Surge and Boost mechanics found in many other themes. Surge is relatively easy to fuel, as there are many sources of Saplings, and real champions tend to be inexpensive. On top of this, the Treefolk theme has access to the relic Greenhouse, which provides a significant stat boost to nearby trees that stacks with itself. Other benefits include Defender, Battlemaster, Shroud, and the plethora of ways to counter lumbering (which is inherent in many Treefolk). All of these and more, make many Treefolk very efficient. Treefolk also grant access to the unique ability Transplant, found on the Wood Elemental. Any time the Wood Elemental dies, the nearest friendly Plant champion is destroyed and the Wood Elemental respawns in it's place. Through this mechanic, it can (potentially) live forever. There are some hard counters to watch out for, but i'll go into those later. Finally, the theme has tons of innate physical resistance (or on demand with a spell), Anti-range (with Absorb, Camouflage,& Shroud), and Healing (through Transfer Life, Heal Champion, Nature's Connections, Regeneration, and Cleanse). Interesting... and the bad news? Actually, there's hardly any. Treefolk have received a lot of support through various expansions, and many of the downsides to playing them have been resolved or reduced. The only things of note are the lack of a Detection champ and the somewhat limited selection of damage types. But really; There're few reasons to not try your hand at playing trees. Go for it! Ok, I'm interested... How should I go about building a tree deck? You generally want Greenhouses, champs with Boost, Anti-lumbering, and (of course) a mix of ranged and melee trees to take advantage of them. The champ count tends to be between 15 and 19 with at least 3 slots taken by relics and the rest by the support spells/equips/relics of your choice. Lash Down, Treefolk's Blessing, and Horn of Order are highly recommended. Here's a pretty straightforward example deck: Here's another deck, and I'm pretty happy with the way the runes work together: Keep in mind that these are just examples. Individual approaches vary, and plenty of wiggle room can be made by cutting out the doubles. Some treefolk are more popular than others, but all of them are playable (even if it's just for being a nice ball of stats, or for it's low price). And just what is all that stuff? What does it do? And why should I use it? Good question. What follows is a detailed analysis of the theme's champs and a brief rundown of the out of theme champs and support runes that merit special consideration. Of course, you might find a rune not included in this list to be a better fit for your own battlegroup (feel free to add them). After that there's some general advice on actually playing with your treedeck. I hope you find this guide useful and enjoyable. =) Field Guide to Treefolk: Theme Champions ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- _______________________________________________________________________________________________ ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Field Guide to Treefolk: Out of Theme Champs ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Field Guide to Treefolk: Spells, Relics, and Equipment ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Field Guide to Treefolk: Gameplay Advice So with your runes selected, it's time to go over the key strategies of the theme: Stack several different 'boosts' to make your champs more competetive. Boost Treefolk doesn't stack with itself, however it stacks nicely with other stat enhancing abilities. Greehouses provide the most significant boost (and even stack with themselves if you can warrant putting two in the same location). Battlemaster (found on the Elven Strategist) is another nice stat increase and not limited to race (making it even better in some cases). Remember to boost by deployment before attacking. Summon and Germinate your Saplings before attacking to get the most out of your Surge champs. When fighting near an uncontested deployment zone, you can deploy a Patriarch or Strategist for a local damage boost to the nearby champs. Greenhouses can be used the same way no matter where the battle is taking place. Use these sudden damage bursts to cause more damage than anticipated and take out the enemy. Use Anti-Lumbering and Relocation to kill champs unexpectedly. Decent players count squares and position their champs just out of killing range, yet close enough to launch an offensive. Naturally, they take into account that several of your champions are Lumbering when doing this. Suddenly removing Lumbering allows you to kill by moving and attacking more than your opponent has anticipated. Spell based forms have the greatest element of surprise, but champ based forms are more cost effective and their threat range is difficult to calcuate even though they're plainly visible. Beware of Swarm, Deconstruct, Fire, and AoE attacks. Swarm and Deconstruct can quickly turn your cheap, effective Saplings against you. When facing either, try to hold your Saplings back while you take out the offending champs. Focus on boosting big sturdy champs rather than overwhelming the opponent with spam. Most treefolk are vulnerable to fire (which is a fairly common damage type and frequently in available in AoE form). Against UD, SL, and Tortuns you want to deploy Nature's Balance as soon as possible. One well placed Fireblast or Firestorm followed by attacks can wipe out your entire army. Nature's Balance at least levels the playing field and gives you a fair chance in these matchups. AoE's in general can be pretty damaging. Most factions have at least one (if not multiple) runnable versions of them. Given treefolk's dependance on proximity buffs, there's really no avoiding getting hit by them, but do your best not to bunch up unecessarily and minimize the chance of being wiped out by spell spam. A Trickster deployed early enough can catch a spell or two and save you a world of hurt. Occlusion is also a possibility but with the downsides of regular nora payments and hampering your own spell support. Transplant can be used against you if you're not careful. The Wood Elemental is great but he can be the death of you if allowed (or forced) to Transplant into your actual champions instead of your dispossable Saplings. He will always Transplant into the closest plant champion. Sometimes keeping one Sapling between him and your real champs isn't enough. Assuming your opponents are at least vaguely familiar with the Wood Elemental they will kill that Sapling first then force the transplant into your real champ. You can avoid this by keeping a few expendables between the Wood Elemental and your real champs or by only using non-plants to fight in close proximity to him. Using more than one Wood Elemental at a time will usually result in accidents (the worst being when one Wood Elemental transplants into the other one). Champs that have taken root can NOT engage or be engaged. Remember this. Enemies can walk around your rooted trees and they won't lift a branch to stop them. Don't run up to a ranged champ and take root thinking it will hinder the champ in any way. While this is usually a drawback, there are a few occasions where it's beneficial (Whirl of Blades is triggered by engagement so rooted trees are completely safe from that ability). Category:K'thir Forest